The Elegy of the Handwritten Letter

Don’t shoot the messenger. But in America, one third of children have never handwritten a letter.

And it’s not just kids. Nearly 40 percent of adult Americans haven’t written a letter in the last five years, while 43 percent of Millenials have never sent one in their lifetime. Whereas recent studies show that Generation Z can’t read cursive and has no idea what the heck Grandma’s letters say.

The New York Times says that “The age of proper correspondence writing has ended…”

“Letter writing is an endangered art,” The Atlantic said.

“The death knell of written correspondence has been sounding for years,” said the Chicago Tribune.

This is not new information, of course, unless you’ve been living underneath a slab of granite. Letters have been replaced by emails and texts.

But texts and emails are not letters. An email has no charm. A text message does not not feel private. You cannot smell the paper. You cannot feel the weight of stationary in your hands. An email is temporary. An email will only last as long as your device is charged.

Fact: Around 92 percent of working Americans feel anxiety when they see an unread email in their inbox.

But a letter. A letter is real. A letter exists in physical space. A letter will not disappear unless you burn it.

There are letters that still exist from 500 BC. Letters from early Romans. Letters from kings and queens. Letters from soldiers in the American Revolution.

A letter is artwork. It is culture. It is language. A letter represents years of handwriting practice in Mrs. Burns penmanship class, as she peered over her cat eye glasses at you, barbarically swatting a ruler in her open palm.

A letter is a moment of time. It is rewrites, spelling corrections, merciless editing, and the act of keeping one’s lines straight.

You can tack a letter to your refrigerator. You can place a letter into a shoebox and have it for years to come.

Letters are personal. You can hear a letter’s personal voice as you read. You see ink on a personal page, intended for your personal eyes. The letter’s postage stamp has been licked with someone’s personal sputum.

So how did we get here?

Every single minute, 208,000 pictures are posted to Facebook and 65,000 images are posted on Instagram. TikTok sees an influx of 34 million uploaded videos each day.

Each day in the world, 18.7 billion texts are sent. The average American will send 40 to 90 texts per day. Most Americans will receive one to two text messages every minute. I have received eight texts since I sat down to write this.

But I bring all this up because although letter writing is not efficient; although it is time consuming; although I can think of more important things I ought to be doing, I still remember the impact handwritten letters have had on my life.

The letter my mother sent me when she was out of town in Saint Louis. The love letter my wife sent when we first started dating. The letter my father sent only days before he died. I still have them all. I still read them. I still love them.

Which is why I still write letters. And I hope I always will.

9 comments

  1. Rosemarie - October 15, 2024 1:48 am

    I

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  2. Rosemarie - October 15, 2024 1:53 am

    Sorry for the nonsense comment before. Re today’s essay, I have folders and boxes of family letters, dating from my childhood to middle age, from my Eastern European grandfather, written in broken English, from my Dad, who was not a letter writer, but did so, from my mom who was, from my son when he was a child, from my beloved aunts, from in-laws, my husband, my European relatives who perished during WW2, etc. They are precious to me, and I have kept them for decades; I cry every time I read them. It’s as if these very important people in my life are sitting in the room talking to me. They took the time to write these letters, and I take the time to preserve and enjoy them. Thanks for the essay.

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    • JimmyJames - October 15, 2024 1:36 pm

      Agree, 100%.

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    • Reverend Philis Griffin - October 18, 2024 10:43 pm

      You are a rare breed. I’m not an avid letter writer but I do use the value of reciprocating in long hand. So next week I will launch a pen pal program between two elementary schools, one in Pasadena CA and the other in Dakar-Plateau Seattle. It’s just several projects I do with the Pasadena-Dakar Sister Cities. I can’t wait to see how the Dakar students react…I’m from Pasadena but I have lived in Dakar for two years. Thank you for inspiring me!

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  3. Dana - October 15, 2024 2:21 am

    Note/letter writing is just about my lest favorite thing to do, always has been. I’d rather type something so I can delete and backtrack to add a word I left out. It’s embarrassing to read what I had hand written. Even before email I didn’t have people other than my parents to write to, it seemed like it was better to call them than write.

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  4. Lisa Barth - October 15, 2024 4:17 pm

    Re: Hand written letters

    YES!

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  5. Barbara Waters - October 15, 2024 4:23 pm

    I love to write letters. This post speaks to my heart. I have a 16 month old great grandson whom I have not been allowed to see or hold since he was 6 weeks old. I am unsure what I did to cause his mother, my granddaughter, so much pain. I have written letters to Oliver, and sent him a birthday card. All were returned to me. Some were opened, most were not. I am currently writing to Oliver on my computer. I hope to have those letters bound into a booklet. They will be given to him by my attorney when he is old enough to accept them of his own free will.

    Keep writing, good sir. Your words touch hearts.

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  6. stephenpe - October 15, 2024 6:29 pm

    great story. I love to write letters. I try to send thank you notes for most things. I still have love letters from 50 yrs ago. It is an art and important.

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  7. Kim - October 15, 2024 10:14 pm

    Its so funny you wrote this right now. My mother died last week at the age of 87, and we are going through a box of letters her mother wrote right before and after my mother was born. They are bittersweet as She died when my mother and her twin were 4 weeks old at the age of 21 and the letters were all my mother had of her mother. She was So excited to be a mother to twins and my mother cherished these letters as my family will now as well.

    Reply

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